Darkling
by GrimalkinMessor
Summary: Harry Potter is just another orphan in the sea of many refugees trying to make ends meet after the war. His friends at his side, he planned to save up enough money to cross the Unsea and live out the rest of their days as simple farmers.Unfortunately, after an attempt to cross the Fold goes terribly wrong, the King and the Darkling don't seem to keen on letting him leave. Harry doe
1. The Fold

Standing on the edge of a crowded road, Harry looked down onto the rolling fields and abandoned farms of Tula Valley and got his first glimpse of the Shadow Fold. His regiment was a two weeks march from the military encampment at Poliznaya and the sun was warm overhead—a miracle in itself on this side of the Fold. Harry shivered and drew his coat closer as his eyes alighted on the black haze that lay like a dirty smudge on the horizon.

A heavy shoulder slammed into him from behind and almost sent him face first into the muddy road. Harry righted himself and whirled around to see a soldier sneering down at him.

"Watch yourself, boy!" The soldier spat.

"Why don't you watch your fat feet?" Harry snapped back, satisfaction filling his chest when shocked surprise flitted over the prick's face. People, particularly big men carrying rifles, didn't expect snark from someone as small and scrawny as Harry. They always looked a bit dazed when they got it.

The soldier got over the novelty quickly and gave Harry a dirty look as he adjusted his pack, then disappeared into the caravan of horses, men, carts, and wagons streaming over the crest of the hill and into the Valley below.

Harry quickened his steps and pushed up onto his tiptoes to peer over the crowd. Or, try to. He'd lost sight of the purple flag of the surveyor's cart an hour ago, and he knew he was far behind. As he walked, Harry took in the green and gold scents of the autumn woods, a soft breeze at his back.

His regiment was on the Vy, the wide road that had once led all the way from Os Alta to the wealthy port cities on Ravka's coast. But that was before the Shadow Fold.

Somewhere in the crowd, someone was singing.

'Singing? What idiot is singing his way into the Fold?' Harry thought, bemused as he glanced again at the the looming smudge on the horizon. He had to suppress a shudder.

He'd seen the Shadow Fold on many maps—a black slash that severed Ravka from its only coastline and left it landlocked. Sometimes it was shown as a stain, sometimes as bleak and shapeless as a cloud. Harry had seen a few maps pass through his hands that merely labeled it like a lake and named it the Unsea. The Fold had ravaged the land it crossed with absolute darkness, turning men into monsters and land into desolate desert.

Harry took in a deep breath to steady himself, suddenly light headed. And then his question as to who had been singing their way to death was answered.

"No fainting in the middle of the road." Fred chirped as he slung an arm around Harry's shoulder, George trying to shove his way past the merchant behind them. "C'mon, one foot in from of the other. You know how it's done!" He ordered in a rather good impression of their Senior.

"You're interfering with my plan."

"Oh really?" George had wriggled free and swung his arm up over Fred's.

"Yes. Faint, get trampled, grievous injuries all around."

"Sounds like a brilliant plan."

"Ah, but if I'm horribly maimed, I won't be able to cross the Fold."

Fred nodded slowly. "Of course. I can shove you under a cart, if that would help."

"I'll consider it." Harry grumbled, but his lips twitched upwards all the same. The twins were always able to lift his spirits, no matter how tense or thick the air. They were family, after all.

After the Weasley's had dropped by one week to deliever clothes to the orphanage, Harry and his friend, Neville, had climbed into their cart and hidden, wanting to be taken away. Well, needless to say, when Mrs. Weasley found out, she hadn't been thrilled, but she hadn't taken them back either. So they'd been all but adopted into the Weasley family.

Speaking of Neville, he had been just behind George earlier, and was now apologizing profusely to the same merchant George had apparently knocked over. Ron rolled his eyes, thumbs in his pockets, and grinned at Harry over Neville's shoulder. "Excited, Harry?"

Harry's weak smile turned sardonic. "Oh yeah. I'm just trembling with anticipation."

George leaned over Harry's head to stage whisper to Fred, who leaned in indulgently. "I dunno about you, but that anticipation looks more like terror to me."

Neville sidled up beside them, a pot of dirt in his hands. "C'mon Hare, it's a one way trip! Once we cross the Fold this once, we'll never have to cross it again. We'll stop in Novokribirsk, then head out over the True Sea to Cofton."

Harry had, of course, heard the plan a hundred times over by now, but it still calmed him to have it repeated. He gave Neville a small, thankful smile.

"Madame's spirits have been restored!" Fred shouted as he and George threw their hands up as if exalting a saint. "The sun can once more shine!"

"Oh, will you two shut up," Harry griped as he turned to try and punch George on the shoulder. Before he could, Neville had caught him under the arms and lifted him up off his feet to swing him back into the twins. The clatter of hooves and shouts shattered the air beside them as a huge black coach roared past, scattering people before it as they ran to avoid the pounding hooves of the four black horses pulling it.

"The Darkling." Neville breathed, eyes wide in alarm.

Heart pounding, Harry nodded absently, still reeling from the fact that he'd almost been run over. For one hysterical moment, he recalled his earlier comment to Fred, and wanted to laugh. But no, there was no mistaking that black coach or the uniform of his personal guard.

Another coach, this one laquered red, rumbled past them at more leisurely pace. Trailing after it was a third coach, laquered in blue. As it rolled past, a woman stuck her head out the window. She had a mane of wild, curly black hair and blood red lips. She scanned the watching crowd and, for some reason, her eyes lingered on Neville. Harry felt him shiver from where their sides were pressed together, still huddle into the twins and Ron on the side of the road. The woman's lips twisted into a wide grin as she held Neville's gaze, watching him over her shoulder until the coach was out of sight.

Neville gawked after her, stunned.

"Did you see that?" A familiar voice bellowed, from in front this time. Bill Weasley came shouldering back towards them, though he was easily tall enough to see over people's heads. Ginny Weasley hurried to catch up behind him. Both of them had their brilliant red hair tied back into a ponytail—Bill's low, Ginny's high.

"We all saw it!" Ron exclaimed back as he clapped Neville on the back.

"She looked right at you!" Bill continued, his grin widening as Neville's perpetually pale cheeks flushed crimson.

"So she did," Neville mumbled, both embarrassed and bewildered, not to mention a little pleased.

Harry could tell it was just from Bill's praise though; Neville had looked like a right deer in the crossfire when he'd locked eyes with that woman. While gorgeous, there was something about her expression that was downright terrifying.

Ginny scoffed and came over to dig Harry out of the cluster of teasing redheads before he suffocated. "You know, they say Grisha girls can put a spell on you." She wiggled her fingers spookily at Neville and Harry snickered as he watched the brunet go pale.

Bill, having just noticed Harry, beamed down at him. "Hey, Trouble," He gave Harry a hard jab on the arm. He laughed when Harry slapped his arm away and delievered a playful punch to his stomach. "You all fell behind. Mum told me to come and get you before you got trampled."

Fred draped himself back over Harry's shoulders. "Aw, but he was counting on it, Bill!"

George propped his chin atop Fred's head and scowled. "Yeah, let a man die in peace would you? Give him some dignity."

Ron, who was stoutly ignoring that train of conversation because it made him nauseous, turned back to Neville. "You know she'll be staying at camp. That Grisha tent is the size of a cathedral, I heard. Lots of nice, shadowy nooks."

"You're despicable," Ginny drawled as they all began walking again.

"Oi, let a man have some fun!"

"Yeah, Gin, I'm pretty sure Nev is the only man in our family who hasn't slid his v-card yet." George chirped with a mischevious waggle of his eyebrows.

"What about Charlie? Or Percy?" Ginny mused.

"What about me?" Harry protested.

Fred flapped a hand at them. "We all know Charlie's married to his job, he doesn't count. And, believe it or not, sis, Percy had quite a few romps before he went on the straight and narrow—"

"Road to hell," George interjected with a dim twist to his mouth.

"And you, Harry, are our darling baby brother, who is too pure for such nonsense. You're not even seventeen yet."

Harry scoffed and blustered out, "You had your first lay at fourteen, you hypocrite! And Ginny's younger than me, but I don't see you coddling her!"

Ron came up beside Harry to nudge the twins off him and put an elbow on his shoulder. "Mate, if anybody but Mum tried to coddle Ginny, it would end in blood." He drawled with a grin.

Unable to argue with that, Harry blew out an angry breath and glowered at the now smirking twins. He brandished a finger at them, "I could absolutely get a lay if I wanted one."

"Oh we have no doubt about that."

"Yes, I've had to beat off several lovestruck boys with a stick, haven't I Gred?"

"And the girls, oh dear, remember that blonde from Vos?"

"I believe she stole his clothes right off the line just so he would have to come over and get them naked."

"You're lucky Forge and I went and got them back for you. How embarrassing would that have been, hm?"

"I hate you both." Harry deadpanned, unamused.

The twins continued to tease him as they made their way into Kribirsk, while Bill and Ron resumed their attempts to coerce a stiff Neville into seducing the Grisha woman. They all went their separate ways after that, because like or not they all had jobs to do. The trip across the True Sea wasn't going to be cheap, so they'd all taken up jobs that would get them across the Fold.

Harry broke off from them to head towards the documents tent. To his relief, it seemed as if the Senior wasn't in their tent yet, so Harry was able to slip in unnoticed. As he weaved between tables and the large white lanterns stationed every ten foot or so, he felt himself relax. After all the dust and jostle and excitement of the trek down, there was something about the familiar scent of paper and ink, along with the soft scratching of nibs and brushes, that soothed him.

He pulled his sketchbook from his coat pocket as he slid onto the work bench beside Dean, who turned to him and whispered irritably, "Where have you been?"

"Nearly getting trampled by the Darkling's coach," Harry drawled dismissively. He grabbed a clean piece of paper and flipped through his sketchbook to find a suitable one to copy. As part of his 'training' as one of the junior cartographer's assistant, he was supposed to submit two finished sketches or renderings everyday.

Dean drew in a sharp breath, eyes wide. "Really? Did you actually see him?"

"I was actually too busy trying not to die."

"Normally you're griping about the opposite. Besides, there are worse ways to go." Dean stopped his next question to scrunch his nose up at the sketch Harry had chosen, and reached over to flip his sketchbook to a different page. "Not that one. There." He tapped the mountain ridge with his finger decisively.

Harry had barely traced his first line when the Senior came swooping in the tent and down the aisles to observe their work as he passed. He paused by Harry and raised an eyebrow. "I hope that's the second sketch you're starting, Potter."

"Yes," Harry lied. "Yes, it is."

As soon as the Senior had moved on, Dean leaned over. "Tell me more about the coach."

Harry gave him a bit of a helpless, exasperated look. "I have to finish my sketches, Dean. Go gossip with Seamus."

Dean slapped one of his sketches down onto Harry's workspace. "There. Seamus didn't see it up close; it would negate the point of gossiping if their wasn't anything new to gossip about."

"He'll know it's your work. Besides, I didn't see much of anything new. Again, trying not to die."

"Again, surprising." Dean mused as he poked Harry in the chest. "And you should be able to pass that off as one of yours; it's one of my sloppier ones."

"There's the Dean I know and tolerate." Harry sighed, but didn't give back the sketch. Dean was easily the best cartographer out of all of them and Harry was behind as it was. Dean grilled him on the Grisha coaches and Harry tried to give him all the details he remembered as he worked on his mountains.

By the time they were finished, dusk was falling. They handed in their work and Dean walked with Harry to the mess tent to stand in line for muddy stew with chunks of indiscernible vegetables. They found seats next to some of the other surveyors, Seamus amoung them.

Harry, more concerned with filling his belly than joining the conversation, listened to Dean and Seamus banter back and forth in silence. Until Dean insisted that Harry retell the tale of his almost-death by horse to the rest of the table. It was followed with the usual mix of fascination and fear that met any mention of the Darkling.

"He's not natural," Seamus grumbled, shoulders hunched and brow furrowed. "None of them are."

"Spare us your superstition, Seamus." Dean rolled his eyes.

"It's not superstition," Seamus continued hotly. "It was a Darkling that created the Shadow Fold in the first place!"

"That was hundreds of years ago! And that Darkling was completely mad."

"This one is just as bad."

"Peasant," Dean dismissed with an affronted wave of his hand. Seamus huffed and turned  
deliberately away to talk to his friends.

Harry stayed quiet. He was more a peasant than anybody, despite their superstitions. It was only because of Molly Weasley that he could read and write (and by an unspoken agreement, he and Neville avoided mentioning the orphanage).

The orphanage itself hadn't been terrible—just poor. Too many children had lost parents in the Border Wars for all of them to fit comfortably under one roof. It caused high tensions and encouraged thievery and bullying amongst them. The only reason Harry had been friends with Neville was because they'd gone to the orphanage together. Their parents had been close friends, in the same regiment, and were wiped out by Volcra before they ever reached the battlefield. The Fold's monsters had torn not only the country in half, but the families as well.

Neville had been soft spoken and polite, if a bit shy, and it was only because of their mutual sorrow that Harry had let Neville in on his plan to hop on the next cart out of there. Neville had been apprehensive at first, but the other children were no nicer to him, so he followed Harry onto the Weasley's cart. And Harry definitely wouldn't apologize for that happy mistake.

After dinner, Dean wanted to stop by the Grisha camp and take a look, but Harry knew Dean was just trying to distract himself. People crossed the Fold every day, sure, but more often than not with heavy casualties. Dean was like Harry in that way. His mindset was not 'that could never happen to me', but 'it would be my luck'. So Harry bid him goodnight and left him to his distractions. Harry preferred to stew.

Tomorrow, if everything went smoothly, they would pass through the Fold to West Ravka, he and his family would stay a week in Kribirsk to make ends meet, and then it was over the True Sea and into Cofton they went.

Harry burrowed under the fur-lined blanket on his cot, and obsessively thought of everything that could go wrong.

He was still wide awake when he heard it. Tap. Pause. Tap tap. Tap. Pause. Tap tap. Harry groaned and rolled off his cot as a few people in his bunk started to stir. Seamus lifted his head blearily. "Wha's goin' on?"

"Nothing." Harry whispered as he stuffed his socked feet back into his boots. He grabbed his coat and crept out of the barracks as quietly as he could. As he opened the door, a girl in the back giggled softly.

"If it's that tamer, tell him to come inside and keep me warm."

"If Charlie wants to catch syphilis, I'm sure you'll be his first stop," Harry replied sweetly, before he slipped out into the night.

The cold air stung his cheeks and whipped through his already wild hair as he tucked his nose into his collar. Neville was sitting the rickety steps as he watched the twins and Ron pass a bottle back and forth between them. Harry let out a breath and came to sit down beside Neville. "Ron finally convince you to loosen up?"

Worried hazel eyes turned to meet his. "You think I should go? To the Grisha tent with them?"

Harry shrugged. "If you want to. Don't go just because they want you to. But if you'd like to—as Fred and George say—do the naked tango with that woman from earlier, then go ahead." He patted Neville between the shoulder blades. "She'd be lucky to have you."

"I don't know about that. She's kind of scary looking, isn't she?" Neville's lips twitched up as he glanced at Harry. "Beautiful. But very scary."

"Very," Harry agreed with a grin. They watched for a quiet moment as the twins began to play Ron-in-the-middle with the bottle that Harry could assume contained something alcoholic.

"He always tries to keep up with them." Neville shook his head, tawny hair falling in his eyes. "They'll challenge him to a drinking contest, he'll try to out do them, and then he'll end up puking on my boots." Though his tone was huffy, his smile was fond.

"Serves you right. Trying to seduce poor Grisha women."

He whipped his head around to gape at Harry, then let out a boisterous laugh that had the twins' heads turning towards them. "I haven't even decided yet, Hare!"

Harry hummed and pulled his knee towards himself. "Well, decide quickly. Gred and Forge are headed this way."

Alarmed, Neville yelped and scrambled to his feet as the twins approached, only to turn tail and bolt in the opposite direction, towards the Grisha camp. Fred and George beamed at each other and raced after him.

"Wait up, Nevs!"

"You're taller than us now!"

"All of you, wait for me!" Ron bellowed after them as he snagged the bottle at last and tore down the road, sending a wink in Harry's direction. "Wish me luck, mate!"

"Good luck, Sir Ronald," Harry gave him a hearty salute and laughed when Ron flipped him off in return. He watched them disappear down the foot path with a bit of melancholy creeping into his heart.

The Fold loomed like a beast over his head, the knowledge that he'd have to cross it about as appealing as sticking his head into the mouth of a lion. It scared him. Not for himself, though that was a bit of it, but for his family. It wasn't irrational, not like this, but Harry had always been obsessively protective over his adoptive family. He'd already lost one, he didn't think he could take losing another one. The casualties on the Fold were one in nine. So even if Harry was the one to die, it would still mean that one other person in his family would get taken out as well.

Bill could poke and the twins could tease all they liked. Harry would still turn in to bed, praying to death, unashamed, and beg it to take someone else.


	2. The Swarm

The morning passed in a blur: breakfast, reassurances from a very hungover Ron, a brief trip to the documents tent to collect everything, and then the chaos of the drydocks.

Harry stood with the rest of his regiment while they waited for their turn to board one of the sandskiffs in the fleet before them. Normally Harry would be intrigued by the concept of boats that were meant for earth instead of water, but his curiosity was dampened majorly by the nausea building in his stomach. Behind them, Kribirsk was waking up and going about its business; ahead was the strange, shifting darkness of the Fold.

Looking out at the skiff's deck, equipped with little more than a sail and a rickety railing, Harry's thoughts filled with several variations of the same thing. There is nowhere to hide. Out on the open deck, the Volcra could pick them off one by one with relative ease. It did not look like a one in nine chance—it looked like a one in two.

At the mast of each skiff, flanked heavily by armed soldiers, stood two Grisha Etherealki, the Order of Summoners, in dark blue cloaks. The silver embroidery at the cuffs and hems of the robes indicated that they were Squallers, or Wind Makers, for those of peasant superstition. They were there, Harry assumed, to fill the sails and get them across the Fold as swiftly as possible.

Soldiers armed with rifles stood lined between more Etherealki, though these had red bordered on their cuffs that indicated they could raise fire. The only line of protection between them and the Volcra.

At a signal from the skiff's captain, the Senior began to herd them onto the deck to join the other passengers. Then he took his place beside the Squallers at the mast, where he would help them navigate through the dark. The Senior had a compass in his hand, but it would be of little use to him once they were on the Fold.

Harry looked around and caught sight of each head of red hair just to reassure himself that they were there. Neville and Ron stood together in the movers section, next to Charlie, who stood with the twins in the trackers' section. While Charlie Weasley had a knack for training any animal he came across, the twins had a knack for findingthem. Harry doubted that there was anything they couldn't find—whether it be an animal, a person, a secret road, or lost treasure—given enough motivation.

Over by the generals was Bill, who waved at him as they locked eyes. Harry smiled back and turned his eyes onto the crowd of people who had just paid for passage through to find Molly and Arthur. He had only just found Ginny within the tailors when the crew from below shoved their skiff into the Fold, then hurried backed away, as if the dead, gray sand would burn their feet.

The Squallers raised their arms, the sails filled with air, and they were in.

At first, it was like drifting into a thick cloud of smoke, but there was no heat, no smell of fire.

Harry's ears popped and he tightened his grip on the railing. He chanced a look back over his shoulder, only to find that the shore had been swallowed up by blackness.

The living world had disappeared. Darkness fell around them, black, weightless, and absolute.

They were in the Fold.

It was like standing at the end of everything. Harry was...exhilarated.

It was so, so odd, but his fear had evaporated as quickly as the sunlight had. There was a certain calmness to the shadow. Harry breathed in through his mouth, and the taste of surety, oneness, clung to the back of his throat like syrup. His fear for the others became almost nonexistent; he could protect them.

And wasn't that a wild thought? That he, Harry, a little scrawny orphan boy, would be able to do anything in the face of danger, should it arise. As incredulous as that thought made him, there was something in his chest, something small and hidden and struggling, that whispered, 'I could...I could do it...' Harry shook his head and smothered it, his trepidation trickling back into his veins as he did so.

There was nothing but silence on every side of him. The gentle rasp of the skiff across the sand barely reached his ears, and he could hear Dean's slightly panicked breaths beside him. He grabbed Harry's wrist in a crushing grip.

"Listen!" He whispered, voice hoarse with terror.

For a moment, all Harry heard was his continued ragged breathing and the steady hiss of the skiff. Then, somewhere out in the darkness, there was the faint but relentless flapping of wings.

Harry gripped Dean's arm with one hand and clutched the hilt of his army issued knife in the other. He searched wildly around for a glimpse of his family, but it was no use. There was nothing but darkness. The sounds of rifles being cocked and arrows being notched had Harry holding his breath. They waited and listened to the sound of wings beating the air, growing louder as they drew nearer. Harry thought he felt the wind stir against his cheek as they circled closer, closer.

"Burn!" The command rang out, followed by the crackle of flint striking stone and an explosive gust of air as rippling plumes of Grisha flame erupted from the skiff.

Squinting in the sudden brightness, Harry quickly looked over the surface of the deck and counted heads of hair. Only then, did he turned his attention to the monsters.

Volcra were supposed to move in small flocks, but there were not tens, but hundreds hovering and swooping in the air around the skiff. Harry had heard stories of creatures called Inferius, that were made from the corpses left to rot in cursed battlefields and sunken into the sea. He remembered looking at the pictures of gaunt, gray, decayed flesh and hollow eye sockets, claw-tipped hands and backwards legs. He was reminded viscerally of those pictures now as he stared at the Volcra.

They looked like Inferi with wings, a cross between a corpse and a harpy, the razor-filled mouth stretched wide and lipless to both sides of their skulls. The sunken sockets held the embers of hellfire within them.

Shots rang out. The archers let fly and the shrieks of Volcra split the air, high and horrible. They dove, and Harry watched in numb horror as a soldier was lifted off his feet and carried off into the darkness. Shaking his head, Harry went to run towards the cluster of red hair on the other side of the skiff, his heart in his throat, when Dean caught his wrist and wrenched him back.

"What are you doing?" Dean hissed, eyes wide with fear.

"Let go!" Harry bellowed over the screams of the nightmare surrounding them. "I need to get to them. I need to protect them!"

"With what?" Dean shouted in return as he effectively tugged Harry down behind a stack of barrels next to the railing. Harry whipped his head around to glare at Dean, but it faltered when he registered the petrified expression on his friend's face.

Harry turned his head back to look helplessly out over the skiff as the light flickered and spluttered, the Grisha tiring out as they continued to fight against the writhing, winged beasts. All around them, pandemonium: men shouting, people screaming, soldiers locked in combat with the massive monsters trying to wrench them over the side. Harry lost sight of his family.

Then a cry rent the air beside him, and Harry choked on a breath as Dean's arm was yanked from his. In a searing flash of fire, Harry saw him clutching the railing with one hand, his eyes wide with terror as he screamed. Harry's heart stopped as he saw the glistening gray arms of the Volcra wrapped around Dean, its talons already buried deeply into his back, already wet with blood. Dean shrieked and his fingers slipped from the railing.

Harry lunged forward and grabbed his arm tightly. "Hold on!" Then the flames vanished once more, and in the darkness Harry felt Dean's fingers pull from his. "Dean!"

Though his friend's screams faded into the sounds of battle behind him, Harry felt them ring loudly in his ears, over and over again as he stood numbly at the edge of the railing, his hand outstretched as if he could pluck Dean right back out of the air and replace him right beside him.

Harry was wrenched from his shock by a gust of wings as another Volcra set upon him. He careened backwards, his knife abruptly in his hands as he slashed blindly in front of him. The beast lept forward, the firelight highlighting its horrible, ember eyes, and for a moment, in the wash of red, Harry thought he saw hell.

A flash of powder at the corner of his eye, and a shot cracking right past his ear, and the Volcra stumbled as it yowled in rage and pain.

"Move!" It was Charlie, his face streaked with several shades of blood. He grabbed Harry's bicep and shoved him behind himself, even as the monster recovered and started back towards them.

Charlie was hastily trying to reload in the firelight, but the beast was too fast. It rushed them, reared up, and slashed its talons across Charlie's chest. He screamed and went down.

"Fuck!" Harry shouted, eyes wide with panic. He whirled on the Volcra and took it by its injured wing to stab his knife right between the slimy, muscled flesh of its shoulders. It screeched and bucked free of his grip, and he fell backwards, his skull meeting the deck hard. It lunged at Harry in a flurry of rage, wide jaws unhinged as if to swallow him whole.

Another shot rang out.

The Volcra stumbled a fell in a grotesque heap, black blood pouring from its mouth. Harry jerked his head up and saw George lowering his rifle, his freckled face pale and tight.

Harry dropped down beside Charlie, who had turned alarmingly white as his tunic became soaked with scarlet. Harry's hands fluttered over his chest uselessly.

"Charlie, oh saints, Charlie—"

"Harry!" Fred's voice was distant, foggy.

The sounds of crackling flames, gunfire, and the horrid squelchs of something feeding made it hard to hear anything called from across the deck. But Harry could hear nothing over the ringing in his ears. He wondered dazedly what he had done to warrent such a punishment; when he had specifically prayed that if someone had to die, that they would take him instead, take him apart piece by piece if they must. But which saint, which God did he piss off enough to not only ignore his plea, but to do the exact opposite? Harry Potter, with the blood of two men on his hands—two deaths—would recieve no salvation from the hands of the Saints today.

A shaking, scarred hand gripped Harry's tightly and pulled his attention back to the man he admired most out of the Weasleys, bleeding out beneath his palms.

"Harry," Charlie rasped out beseechingly. "Harry, more are coming, you have to move."

"No. No, I'm not leaving you." Harry answered fiercely even as his glasses fogged up with tears. This couldn't be real, it just couldn't...

"Harry you have to go help the others. They need you. I'll be all right. It's just nature, is all; everyone needs to eat." Charlie smiled weakly.

Harry choked out a laugh that sounded more like a sob. That was just such, such a Charlie statement that he couldn't help but feel his sadness clear. Because of course he was defending the monsters that had torn his chest open. It was part of what Harry admired so much about Charlie—he tended to see the good in everything.

Charlie let out a sigh and let his head fall back. He squeezed Harry's fingers reassuringly and closed his eyes. "Go, little one."

And just like that, the absence of Harry's sadness was flooded with anger. The skiff had stopped moving, and the bouts of Grisha flame were growing weaker. No, this was not the end. He refused to let it be the end. "No," He retorted sharply. "I am not leaving you here to die!"

With that declaration, Harry felt something crack in his chest. He blinked, and then excruicating pain sliced through him as jagged teeth dug into his shoulder.

The world exploded in white.

Shouts of alarm and cries of relief sounded in unison with the terrified shrieks of the Volcra as they hurriedly swooped up and away. Harry let out a cry himself as light crashed across his vision. It filled up his head, blinding him, drowning him. He felt the Volcra release its grip on his shoulder and scramble away, just before he felt himself slump and hit the deck.

Everything went black.


	3. The Aftermath

Harry woke with a start. He could hear the wind whistling past his ears, and when he opened his eyes he saw what seemed to be dark clouds of smoke above him. He was sprawled out on his back on the deck of the skiff. He blinked and groaned softly, a dull pounding in his head just behind his eyes. The clouds of smoke grew thinner and thinner until they were merely dark wisps around the harsh light of the bright, autumn sun.

Green eyes closing once more, Harry felt a wave of relief wash over him. They were out of the Fold. Somehow, they had made it through.

' _Or did we?_ ' Harry thought with sudden panic. Memories of the Volcra attack flooded back to him in a frightening rush. Where was his family? Where were Neville, Ron, Fred, George? Harry felt his heart stop. Where was Charlie?

Harry tried to sit up and a jolt of pain panged through his shoulder. He ignored it. He pushed himself the rest of the way up to find himself looking down the barrel of a rifle.

"Get that thing out of my face," Harry growled snappishly as he batted it to the side.

"Stay where you are," The soldier holding the gun commanded as he swung it back around to jab it threateningly at him.

Harry stared at him, stunned. "What is wrong with you?"

"He's awake!" He shouted over his shoulder without answering. Two more armed soldiers, the captain, and a Corporalnik came to his side. With a trill of panic, Harry saw that her cuffs were embroidered in black.

What did a Heartrender want with him? He looked around and saw a Squaller and a single soldier at the mast to help them forward. A Corporalnik with white embroidery was healing people on the other side of the deck, which was still spotted with wet blood. Harry's stomach churned uneasily.

There were soldiers and Grisha standing by the railings, bloodied, singed, and far fewer in number than when they had first set out. All of their eyes, no matter how discreet, were trained on Harry. With growing hysteria, Harry realized that the soldiers and Corporalnik were actually guarding him.

Like a prisoner.

"My family," Harry rasped out. "Where is my family?" No one said anything. "T-They're tall, and all of them have red hair—bright as a pumpkin, you can't miss it. There would be about seven of them, and a blond boy with them. One of my brothers was injured during the attack, Charlie Weasley, a tamer. Please, where are they?" Harry pleaded.

"Up." Was the only reply he received, the gun back in his face as the skiff jolted to a stop.

"No! I'm not going anywhere until—"

"You'll go wherever we tell you to go, boy, if you ever want to see them again." The Heartrender said icily, a dangerous look in her eyes that said Harry would not like where pushing her got him.

Fuming, Harry staggered to his feet. When he stumbled, he reached out instinctively to steady himself, only to have the soldier he touched shrink away from his hand as if burned. He managed to find his footing by himself, but his twinge of satisfaction was overrun by his reeling thoughts.

The captain glanced over the railing, made an odd hand gesture to someone below, then turned back to them. "Move."

The soldiers led Harry at riflepoint from the skiff, and he was acutely aware of the curious and  
frightened stares of the other survivors. Harry caught sight of his Senior babbling excitedly to one of the soldiers, only to bite his tongue when Harry passed. Seamus loitered behind the Senior, his face gaunt and miserable. He must've heard about Dean. Harry looked away.

As they stepped onto the drydock, Harry was shocked to see that they were back in Kribirsk.  
They hadn't even made it across the Fold. Anger bubbled to life in his chest.

' _Then what was the bloody point!?_ ' He thought furiously.

He was torn from his righteous fury by the feeling of eyes on him. As the soldiers marched him through the main road, people turned from their work to stop and gawk at them. Harry's mind whirled, but he found no answers to any of his questions. Had he done something wrong on the Fold? Broken some kind of military protocol? How had they even gotten out of the Fold,  
anyway?

The wound on his shoulder throbbed. Last thing Harry remembered was the searing pain of the  
Volcra's fangs in his flesh, and then that brilliant burst of light. How had they survived?

Those thoughts were driven from his mind as they reached the officers' tent. The captain called the guards to a halt and went to go in, only for the Heartrender to reach out a hand and stop him. "This is a waste of time. We should proceed directly too—"

"Get your hands off me, bloodletter," The captain growled as he shook his arm free. For a  
moment, Harry thought the woman might just kill him out of sure spite, but to his surprise, she  
merely bowed and smiled coldly.

"Yes, _Kapitan_."

Harry felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

The captain disappeared inside the tent. As they waited on him, Harry felt the Heartrender's eyes  
drilling holes into his face. Scrutinizing. Calculative. Harry wished the captain would hurry up.

It seemed Harry would receive his wish, if only to cause him more trouble. He was stunned to see  
the tent flap open to reveal the captain, accompanied by the Colonel Goldstein. What could Harry possibly have done to require the involvement of a senior officer?

Colonel Goldstein peered at him, face grim. "What are you?"

"Assistant Cartographer Harry Potter, sir. Royal Corps of Surveyors—"

"No," He cut Harry off. " _What_ are you?"

"I'm a _mapmaker_ , sir." Harry shot back with a glare, very much done with all of this. He was hungry, he was exhausted, his shoulder hurt, and he still had no clue if his family was still alive or not. Harry thought of Charlie with his heart in his throat and his stomach in his shoes. Saints, there had been so much blood...

Goldstein scowled. He pulled one of the soldiers aside and muttered something to him that sent the soldier sprinting back towards the drydocks. "Let's go," He barked tersely.

Harry felt the jab of a rifle at his back and shot a glower to the owner of it before marching  
forward. His irritation was feeble at best, however, as Harry had a fairly good idea of where he was being taken. But, surely it couldn't be. It made no sense.

But as the huge black tent loomed large and larger ahead of them, Harry knew there could be no doubt of their destination. The entrance to the Grisha tent was guarded by more Heartrenders and charcoal-clad men, the elite soldiers that made up the Darkling's personal guard. They weren't Grisha, but they were just as frightening.

High above, four flags fluttered in the breeze. Blue, red, yellow, and above them all, black. Just last night, Harry had been listening to the twins and Neville laughing about how they were going to try sneaking inside this tent, and what they might find inside. Now it seemed that Harry would be the one to find out.

The Heartrender and Colonel Goldstein conferred briefly with the guards in front of the entrance, then disappeared inside. Harry waited, heart a frantic bird in his chest, and wondered again what had happened to his adoptive family.

After what seemed to be an eternity, the Heartrender returned and nodded to the captain, who led Harry into the Grisha tent.

For a moment, his fear fell, forgotten, into the back of his mind. It was beautiful. The tent's inner walls were draped in cascades of bronze silk that glimmered with the candlelight of the sparkling chandeliers above. The floor was covered in rich rugs and furs softer than Harry had ever seen. Along the walls, shimmering silken dividers seperated compartments where Grisha clustered together in their vibrant fur robes. Some stood talking, others lounged on cushions drinking tea. Two were bent over a game of chess.

Before the Weasleys had acquired two new family members via clothing cart, Harry and Neville had used to wander the halls of the Duke's manor. It had been beautiful, but it had been the antique beauty of dusty rooms, peeling paint, and chipped gilds of gold. The echo of something that had once been grand. It had _nothing_ on this.

Soldiers marched Harry down a long carpeted aisle, at the end of which stood a black pavilion on a raised dias. Ripples of curiosity spread through tent as Harry passed. Grisha men and women stopped their conversations to stare at him—a few even stood to get a better look. Harry bristled.

By the time they had reached the dias, the room had grown damn near silent. In front of the black  
pavilion, a few richly attired ministers wearing the King's double eagle and a group of Corporalki huddled around a long table spread with maps.

At the head of the table was an ornately carved, high-backed chair of blackest ebony. Upon it lounged a figure in a black cloak, his chin resting on one pale hand.

Only one Grisha wore black, was _permitted_ to wear black.

Colonel Goldstein stood beside him and spoke to him in tones far too low for Harry to hear. Harry was torn between apprehension and intrigue. ' _He's too young,_ ' Harry thought in bewilderment. This Darkling had been commanding the Grisha since before Harry was born, but the man seated on the dias didn't look much older than Harry did.

He had an elegant, handsome face, a coif of silky black hair, and eyes so dark that Harry couldn't make out his pupils. Harry knew that powerful Grisha were said to live long lives, and the Darkling was the most powerful Grisha of all, but Harry couldn't help but feel something...odd, about the man. He remembdered Seamus's superstitious words and wondered if they were so off the mark after all.

 _He's not natural. None of them are._

A sharp laugh sounded from the crowd that had formed near the dias, and Harry turned to see the woman from the day before, the one that had stared after Neville like a cat before a mouse. She was looking at Harry with a smirk, a disdainful glint in her eyes.

Harry knew what he must look like. Covered in dirt, blood, and who knew what else, in baggy peasant clothes with unkempt hair. The antithesis of everything this tent represented.

He raised his chin and narrowed his eyes at her. ' _Go ahead and laugh, bitch. Whatever you're  
thinking, I've heard worse._'

"Bring them," Colonel Goldstein ordered, his voice loud enough to startle Harry from his spite.

Harry turned to see more soldiers leading in a battered and bewildered group of people into the tent and up the aisle. Amoung them, he spotted the soldier who had been beside him when the Volcra attacked, and his Senior, whose face was frightened in a way Harry had never seen. His own distress grew as he realized that they were the survivors from the sandskiff; they had been brought before the Darkling as witnesses. What the hell had happened out there on the Fold? What did they think he had done?

His breath caught in his chest when he saw a group of clustered redheads just behind the trackers. Harry frantically began counting heads. Yes, there was Molly, Arthur, Ginny, and Neville. Ron stood, white faced, with the twins. Harry felt rather like he was having a heart attack, because where was—

"Charlie," Harry wheezed out a sigh of relief, knees suddenly weak. Charlie was leaning on one of the few other tamers, his shirt bloodied and his face alarmingly pale, but very much alive. They were fine. They were all alive.

"HAR—!" Ron had exclaimed his name in shock, relief, only for Neville to clap a hand over his mouth.

Sending Ron a smile that felt much more like a grimace, Harry turned his attention away from them to look back up at the dias, only to blink. The Darkling was looking straight at him. His was still listening to the Colonel, his posture just as relaxed as it had been before, but his gaze was focused, intent. Dizzying. He turned his attention back to Colonel Goldstein and Harry let out a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding.

When the bedraggled group of survivors reached the dias, Colonel Goldstein straightened. " _Kapitan_ , report."

"Approximately thirty minutes into the crossing, we were set upon by a large flock of Volcra. We were pinned down and sustaining heavy casualties. I was fighting on the starboard side of the skiff when I saw..." Here the captain paused, unsure. "I don't know exactly what I saw. A blaze of light. Bright as noon, brighter, even. Like staring into the sun." As the captain finished the crowd erupted in murmurs and nodding. Harry found himself nodding along with them. He had seen the burst of light too.

"The Volcra scattered and the light disappeared. I ordered us back to the drydock immediately." The captain explained hurriedly.

"And the boy?" The Darkling asked, eyes low.

With a jolt, Harry realized that he was talking about him.

The captain hesitated yet again. "I didn't see the boy, my Lord."

The Darkling raised an eyebrow and tilted his head towards the other survivors with something  
like cool indifference. "Who actually saw what happened?"

The survivors broke into muttered discussion amounst themselves. Then slowly, timidly, Harry's Senior stepped forward.

"Tell us what you saw." Goldstein's voice offered no room for arguement.

"We..." The Senior licked his lips nervously. "We were under attack. There was fighting all around. So much noise. So much blood. O-One of the boys, Dean, was taken. It was horrible, horrible." His hands fluttered about a bit uselessly.

Harry felt disgust rise in his belly for this man. If the Senior had seen Dean being attacked, why hadn't he tried to help?

The old man cleared his throat. "They were everywhere. I saw one go after him—"

"Go after who?" Goldstein interrupted.

"Harry...Harry Potter, one of my assistants."

There were a few murmurs across the tent, and Harry grit his teeth at the looks he was beginning to receive.

"Go on, then," Goldstein said after a moment of pause.

"I saw one go after him and the tamer," He went on as he gestured vaguely in Charlie's direction.

"And where were you?" Harry snapped with a scowl. Every face turned to look at him, but Harry was beyond caring. "You saw the Volcra attack us. You saw it take Dean—why didn't you help?" He demanded.

"T-There was nothing I could do! They were everywhere, it was chaos!" The Senior spluttered, his hands spread wide.

"Dean might still be alive if you had gotten off your boney ass to help us!"

There was a gasp and a burble of laughter from the crowd as his Senior flushed with anger.

Despite his position, Harry wasn't sorry. If he ever got out of this mess, he would be in a heap of trouble, but if it made that coward regret letting an innocent man die, Harry wouldn't regret it.

Goldstein glowered out at the crowd. "Enough! Tell us what you saw, Cartographer."

The crowd hushed and the Senior wet his lips again. "The tamer went down, and he was beside him. The thing, the Volcra, was coming at them. I saw it on top of him and then...he lit up."

The Grisha burst into exclamations of disbelief and derision. A few of them laughed. Harry frowned at his Senior, baffled. Maybe he shouldn't have cut him down so hard, the man had obviously taken some head trauma.

"I saw it!" The Senior bleated over the din. "Light came _out_ of him!"

Some of the Grisha jeered openly, while others cried, "Let him speak!" The Cartographer looked desperately to his other survivors and, to Harry's amazement, some of then began to nod. Had everyone gone mad? Did they actually think _Harry_ had somehow chased off the Volcra?

"This is absurd!" A voice from the crowd yelled. A boy with dark skin and dressed in a red kefta scowled at the Senior. "What are you suggesting, old man? That you've found us a Sun Summoner?"

"I'm not suggesting anything, I'm just telling you what I saw!" He protested.

"It's not impossible," A tall man in Fabrikator yellow replied. "There are stories—"

"Don't be ridiculous," The other boy said scathingly. "The man's clearly had his wits rattled by the Volcra!" Harry was inclined to agree with that statement, however rude.

The crowd erupted into a loud argument.

Harry's already foul mood blackened further. It had been briefly raised by the sight of his relatively unharmed friends and family, but completely doused by the attention now put upon him. He didn't know or care what his Senior or any of the others on the skiff had seen, or what they had _thought_ they'd seen. This was some sort of mistake, and at the end of it all, Harry would end up being the one who looked foolish. He was teased enough already, thank you very much, he did not need this on top of it.

"Quiet."

The Darkling didn't raise his voice, but the command seemed to slice through the crowd with ease. Silence fell.

Harry suppressed a shudder. The Darkling might not find this joke so funny. He wasn't known for his overflowing mercy. Seamus had once said that the Darkling had a Heartrender seal a traitor's mouth shut permanently. His lips had been grafted together and he had starved to death.

Nonetheless, ducking his head would only make Harry seem guilty. He lifted his chin and glared back at the Darkling, as if daring him to place the blame on him.

"Tamer," The Darkling said softly. "What did you see?"

As one, the crowd turned onto Charlie, who was still leaning on his fellow tamer—Newt, if Harry remembered correctly—and standing just to the left of the rest of the Weasleys. Charlie looked uneasily at Harry and then back to the Darkling. "Nothing. I didn't see anything."

"The boy was right beside you."

"I had lost a lot of blood." Charlie replied smoothly without looking up.

"Surely you must have seen something." The Darkling prodded again.

"We didn't see anything, either." The twins stepped forward simultaneously, a firm set to their mouths. Harry felt both grateful and fearful that they were trying to stick up for him.

"Me either!" That was Neville.

The Darkling's eyes slid carefully over Charlie, looked the twins up and down, before coming to a stop on Neville. "Really?" He said coolly. "Then tell us what you remember, boy."

Neville swallowed harshly, clearly not prepared for that. He clenched his fists. "I was across the deck and firing off at one of the Volcra when I heard screaming. I turned around to look, and there was just this bright ball of light, like the sun. It was impossible to tell where it was coming from, much less if it was coming from anybody, bright as it was. I didn't see him at all."

"So it could have come from him, but you just would have not seen it, yes?" Goldstein drawled.

"Harry isn't—He couldn't—We're from the same...village." Harry noticed that tiny pause, the orphan's pause that they shared between them. "If he could do something like that, I would know."

The Darkling stared at Neville for a long moment before glancing back at Harry. "We all have our secrets."

Neville, Fred, and George all opened their mouths to say more, to protest, perhaps, but the Darkling held up a hand to silence them. Anger flashed over the twins' faces, but they shut their mouths.

Standing up from his chair, the Darkling smoothly made his way down the steps of the dias towards Harry. Harry reigned in the urge to back away, somehow able to hold his ground and the Darkling's gaze at the same time. The man stopped just before him, head tilted curiously.

"And what do you say, Harry Potter?" He asked pleasantly.

"I think there's been some kind of mistake," Harry answered stubbornly. Harry had to make him understand that he'd had no part in any of this. "I didn't do anything. I don't know how we survived, but I'm not going to take credit for it, especially since I didn't do it." He narrowed his eyes at the Darkling, just short of a glare.

The Darkling appeared to consider this, a bit of a bemused expression on his handsome face as he studied Harry. "Well, I like to think that I know everything that happens in Ravka, and that if a Sun Summoner had been living in my own country, I'd be aware of it." His dark eyes were intense, a double meaning in his words. "But something powerful had to have stopped the Volcra and saved the skiffs, or you would not be here now, would you?"

He paused and waited, as if he expected Harry to solve this puzzle for him. Harry lifted his chin determinedly. "I didn't do anything. Not one thing."

The side of the Darkling's mouth twitched, as if he were repressing the urge to smile. His gaze slid over Harry from head to toe and back again. Harry felt oddly like something strange and shiny, a curiousity that had washed up on a lake shore, that the man might kick aside with his boot.

"Is your memory as faulty as your friends'?" He mused as he glanced toward the place Charlie  
was standing.

"I don't..." Harry faltered in his retort, brow furrowed. What did he remember? Terror. Darkness. Pain. Blood, coating his hands. The rage that had consumed him near the end at the thought of his own helplessness.

"Hold out your arm."

"What?" Harry blurted, wide eyed and bewildered.

"We've wasted enough time. Hold out your arm." The Darkling commanded again, and though Harry wanted to protest, an icy feeling trickled down his spine and sealed his lips.

Harry pursed his lips and scanned the crowd for any helpful eyes, but there were none. The survivors were frightened, the Grisha looked intrigued, and the Weasleys had all gone deathly pale. Trying desperately to still his shaking, Harry slowly held out his arm.

Satisfied, the Darkling spread his arms wide. Harry's mind whirled with alarm as blackness pooled in the man's palms, writhing like ink through water; at the same time, something heavy reared in his chest and kicked him breathless, just as it had on the Fold. There again was that impossible feeling of exhilaration. _Oneness._

"Now," He said in that same, absurdly conversational tone, as if they were sitting together drinking tea. "Let us see what you can do."

He brought his hands together and there was a sound like a thunderclap. Harry gasped as undulating darkness spread from the Darkling's clasped hands to spill in a black wave over Harry and the crowd.

Harry was blind. The room was gone. Everything was gone. The simultaneous pulse of terror and exuberance nearly sent him to his knees.

A startled gasp of air escaped his lips as he felt thin, cool fingers wrap around his bare wrist. Abruptly, Harry's fear receded. It was still there, a cringing animal inside him, but it had been shoved aside by the Other, calm and sure and powerful, almost familiar.

Harry felt a call ring through him and, to his disbelief, he felt something deep within him rise up to answer. He frantically pushed it down, pushed it away. Somehow he knew that if that thing broke free, it would destroy him.

"Nothing there?" The Darkling murmured.

' _That's right, nothing!_ ' Harry thought wildly, pouncing on his words. His rattled, panicked mind barely registered how close the man was to him. ' _Nothing there at all. Now leave me alone!_ '

To Harry's relief, that struggling, roaring thing inside him seemed to lie back down, leaving the Darkling's call unanswered.

"Not so fast," He whispered.

Something cold and sharp pressed to the inside of Harry's wrist. A knife, he realized, just as the blade was slid deeply into his skin. The thing gave a rattle, a feeble try to answer as pain and shock shot through Harry's limbs. But Harry smothered it once more.

A lilting hum reached his ears. "Apparently not. I wonder if I should try this blade on one of your friends, then."

Rage ignited deep in Harry's chest, and he could keep hold of the thing within him no longer. It roared to the surface, racing toward the Darkling's call. Harry had no choice. He answered. The world exploded into blazing, brilliant, white light.

The darkness around them shattered like glass, and a for stunning moment, Harry could see the shocked faces of the crowd with sunlight beaming on their faces, the air tinged with heat. Then the Darkling released his grip, and Harry felt the loss of his touch deeply in his chest, that peculiar feeling of unity muted and dulled without it. The radiance disappeared and left ordinary candlelight in its place. Harry's knees buckled, and the Darkling caught him up against his body with one arm.

"I guess you only look like a mutt." He murmured in Harry's ear, then beckoned to one of his personal guards. "Take him," He said as he handed Harry over to the guardsman who reached out to support him. Harry flushed with indignance—at the comment, at the gesture, at being handed over like a sack of potatoes, and he opened his mouth to protest. He never got the chance, because the Darkling suddenly seemed to remember the cut he'd made on Harry's wrist and barked over him.

"Barty! Get him to my coach. I want him surrounded by an armed guard at all times. Take him to the Little Palace and stop for nothing. Get someone to see to his wounds to make sure he doesn't bleed out on the way there."

A tall Heartrender with sandy blond hair and an unsettling grin rushed over to them and nodded respectfully to the Darkling. "Of course, my Lord."

Harry grit his teeth as Barty the Heartrender grasped his arm to lead him away. "Now wait!" Harry snapped as the Darkling turned away from him. Annoyance roiling in his chest, Harry reached out and grabbed his arm. He ignored the gasp of the Grisha onlookers. "This—This is a mistake. I'm not..." Harry swallowed when those dark eyes drifted to where white fingers twisted in his sleeve, and hastily let go, though he didn't give up that easily. "I'm not what you think I am."

A beat of silence, and then the Darkling stepped closer to him and spoke in a voice so low no one else could hear. "I doubt you have any idea what you are." He nodded at Barty. "Go!"

The Darkling turned his back on Harry and walked swiftly toward the raised dias, where he was swarmed by advisers and ministers. Even if Harry had wanted to shout at him some more, he doubted he would have been heard over the clamor.

Barty yanked Harry cheerfully along by the bicep. "Come on."

"Barty. Mind your tone. He is Grisha now." The Darkling drawled over the heads of the representitives.

"Ah. Yes, of course, my Lord." Barty gave a small bow, but his grip didn't slacken on Harry's arm. It was as if he was concerned that Harry would sprint at the first chance to escape. For good reason, as Harry was definitely thinking of doing that right about now.

"You have to listen to me," Harry hissed as he struggled to keep up with Barty's long strides. "I'm not Grisha. I'm a mapmaker. I'm not even a very good mapmaker." He insisted.

Barty ignored him, his smile a tad wider.

Harry tried in vain to pull himself from the Heartrender's grip, looked back over his shoulder, and searched the crowd. Having been dragged to the other side of the tent already, Harry could only see a few of the faces he wanted.

Neville and Ron were arguing with the captain if the sandskiff, and just behind them Harry could make out the white, panicked face of Fred Weasley.

"Fred!" Harry gasped out. "Fred!" It was no use.

They were gone, swallowed up by the crowd.


	4. The Cut

_**((Yo! Sorry about those first couple of chapters, I'm fairly sure I fixed it. Thank you to those who pointed it out—I'm new to FF, so I don't really know what I'm doing yet. Love y'all!))**_

—

Barty dragged him out of the tent and into the brightness of the late afternoon sun, down a low hill and onto the road where the Darkling's black coach was already waiting, surrounded by a ring of mounted Grisha Etherealki and flanked by lines of armed cavalry.

Two gray-clad guards and two Corporalki stood just in front of the door to the coach.

"Get in," Barty commanded brightly. Then, as if remembering the Darkling's orders, "If you please."

"No." Harry retorted.

"What?" Barty looked genuinely shocked, the Corporalki behind him almost horrified.

"No! I'm not going anywhere. There's been some kind of mistake. I'm not—"

"The Darkling doesn't make mistakes." Barty's grip on Harry's arm tightened and his expression turned icy. "Get in the coach."

Harry glowered right back, "I don't want—"

Barty lowered his head until his bose was just inches from Harry's. His voice was a low, condescending purr. "Do you think I care what you want? In a few hours time, every Fjerdan spy and Shu Han assassin will know what happened on the Fold, and guess what, little Lightling?" His grin was back, twisted and dim. "Mistake or not, they'll be coming for you. They'll kill you, and then maybe they'll hunt down that herd of gingers you call family, just to make sure they didn't miss one. Your only chance is for us to get you to Os Alta and behind palace walls before anyone else discovers what you are. Now, get in the coach."

White faced at the thought of Fjerdans hunting down his adoptive family and cutting their throats in their beds, all because of him, Harry let himself be shoved into the coach. Barty settled in on one side of the coach, the other two Corporalki clambering in beside him, while Harry plopped down on the seat across from him, the two guards on either side.

He somehow worked his tongue back down from the roof of his mouth. "So I'm the Darkling's prisoner?"

"You're under his protection."

"What's the difference?"

The man to Barty's left scoffed and gave Harry an unreadable stare. "Pray you never find out."

Well. Wasn't that ominous? Harry scowled and slumped back on the cushioned seat, only to hiss and lean forward again. He'd forgotten his wound.

Barty jerked his head at the woman to his right. "See to him."

The woman switched places with one of Harry's guards so she could sit beside him. Just then, a soldier poked his head into the coach. "We're ready."

"Good. Stay alert and keep moving. We only stop to change horses. If we stop before then, I will assume something is wrong." Barty ordered with a bit of a dangerous glint in his eye.

The soldier paled and disappeared, the door slammed shut behind him. The driver didn't hesitate. With a cry and the snap of a whip, the coach lurched forwards. Barty gave a pleasant smile at the door, smug. Harry had the feeling that people didn't like telling Barty that things were wrong.

"Please remove your coat." The woman spoke up at last.

"What?"

"I need to see your wounds."

Harry considered refusing, just for the spite of it, but what would have been the point? Besides, it wasn't her fault; she'd just been told to heal him. Which, considering how his bicep had almost gone numb, he would be rather grateful for at the moment. He shrugged out of his coat and let the healer ease his shirt over his shoulders. Harry had never been healed by Grisha before, and his muscles were tense as the woman took something out of her satchel. A sharp, chemical scent filled the coach. Harry flinched as she cleaned the bite on his shoulder, but settled back down with his fingers digging harshly into his knees.

A hot, prickling sensation bubbled up beneath his skin, the urge to reach back and claw at his shoulder blade almost unbearable. Finally, she stopped and let his shirt fall back into place. "Now the arm."

Harry had almost forgotten the Darkling's cut on his wrist, but now that he looked, his hand and nails were sticky with blood. The Healer mopped up the blood on his arm and cleaned the cut without flinching, then held his arm up to the light.

"Try to hold still, or there will be a scar," She warned.

"I've got scars aplenty," Harry shrugged. "What's one more?" No doubt his shoulder looked like a war-wound.

But the Healer gave him a disapproving look, so he held as still as possible in the bumpy, jostling coach. The Healer slowly passed her hand over the cut and he felt his skin throb with heat. The deplorable itching was drowned out by amazement as Harry watched his flesh shimmer and move as the two sides of the wound knit back together. The skin sealed shut, and the itching stopped. The Healer sat back and Harry reached out to run his fingers over his wrist. There was a slightly raised line where te cut had been, but that was all.

"Thank you," Harry breathed in awe.

"Of course," She replied with a polite incline of her head.

"Give him your kefta," Barty butted in after a moment, his arms crossed lazily.

The Healer frowned, but hesitated only a momentbefore she shrugged out of her red cloak and handed it to Harry. Harry matched her frown. "Why do I need this?"

Barty grinned and tipped his head. "You ask a lot of questions."

Harry scowled and snorted. "Not that you've given me any straight answers. At least not ones that don't sound like threats."

Perhaps sensing the tension in the coach, the woman slid over to the door of the coach, tapped the roof twice, waited for thrm to slow, and then opened the door to swing outside. The door banged shut behind her.

Temporarily distracted, Harry blinked. "Where is she going?"

"Back to kribirsk. We'll travel faster with less weight." The man beside Barty gruffed.

"All of you look heavier than she does," Harry grumbled, only partially beneath his breath.

"Put on the kefta." The man repeated with a glance at Barty.

"Why?"

"Because it's made with Materialki corecloth. It can withstand rifle fire."

Harry stared at him. Was that even possible? There had always been stories of Grisha withstanding direct gunshots and surviving what should have been fatal wounds, but Harry had never taken them seriously. Maybe the truth behind the peasant tales was just Fabrikator handiwork.

Soldiers apparently weren't worth it, though.

He slowly pulled the kefta on withoutlooking at anybody. "Do you all wear this stuff?"

"When were in the field." One of the guards said, and Harry nearly had a heart attack. He hadn't known they could speak.

"Just don't get shot in the face," Barty drawled, his grin now more than a bit condescending.

Harry ignored him.

The kefta felt far too large. It felt soft and unfamiliar, the fur lining warm against his skin. Harry gnawed on his lip as the coach picked up speed, fingers twisted in the lovely fabric.

In the time it had taken for the Healer to do her work, dusk had fallen and they'd left Kribirsk in the dust. Harry leaned forward and strained to see out the window, but the world beyond was a twilight blur. His eyes stung briefly before he reigned himself him. A few hours ago, he'd been a worried boy on his way into the unknown, but at least he had known who and what he was. What would his fellow surveyors be doing right now? Mourning Dean's death? Talking about what happened on the Fold—about Harry?

What would the Weasleys be thinking? Did they think he had hidden this supposed power of his from them, that he had let it free on purpose? Surely they would have the truth, the desperation in his eyes. And Fred, Fred had to know. That stricken look on his face...

This had to all be a dream. Harry couldn't really be wearing Grisha kefta and riding in the Darkling's coach. The very same coach that Neville had saved him from being crushed beneath yesterday. Yes, that had to be what triggered this hysterical hallucination of his. Harry's knuckled whitened, his grip so tight in the furred silk that he thought he might just tear through it.

Someone lit a lamp inside the coach, and Harry was pulled from his thoughts by the flickering light. He blinked as he finally noticed the wealthy interior of the coach. The seats were heavily cushioned black velvet, the floor wooden and polished to shine. On the windows, the Darkling's symbol had been cut into the glass; two overlapping circles—the sun in an eclipse.

Across from Harry, the two Heartrenders were studying him with open curiousity. The one that had spoken earlier had dark hair and a long, melancholy face. Barty was shorter, less broad, but his golden-straw hair and sharp jawline made him leagues more attractive than his friend.

Now that Harry was bothering to look, he could admit the man was handsome. Handsome, of course, but a total sycophant prick.

He shifted restlessly in his seat, unnerved by their stares. Irritation rose up to scratch at his mind once more. Harry tried to hold his tongue, as he knew these people could literally make his heart explode in his chest, but eventually their gawking got to be too much.

"I don't do tricks, you know." Harry growled.

"That was a pretty good trick you did back there in the tent." The Corporalnik said with a raised eyebrow.

Harry barely bit back a snarl. "Well if I plan on doing something exciting, I'll let you know. Until then, just, I dunno...take a nap or something."

The Corporalnik looked affronted. Harry's pulse spiked briefly, but Barty let out a bark of laughter. He gave Harry an appraising look and jerked his head at the taller man. "This is Antonin Dolohov."

Harry sized Dolohov up for a momenf before giving a hesitant nod. Then, with Molly's disapproving face in mind, blurted out, "Nice to meet you."

Barty just looked amused.

"Is it safe to be traveling at night like this?" Harry ventured after a moment of narrow staring.

"Not really," Barty admitted. "But it would be considerably more dangerous to stop."

"Because people are after me now?"

"If not now, then soon."

Harry snorted. Dolohov glanced at Harry with a quirked brow. "For hundreds of years, the Shadow Fold has been doing our enemies' work: closing off our ports, choking us, making us weak."

Unease crawled up his spine. "So?"

Barty answered this time, a strange glintin his eye. "If you're truly a Sun Summoner, then your power could be the key to opening up the Fold. Maybe even destroying it. And unfortunately, Fjerda and Shu Han aren't going just going to sit back and watch that happen."

Harry gaped at him. What did these people expect from him? He couldn't destroy the fucking Fold! That was insane! What would happen when they found out Harry couldn't deliver? Harry shook his head and grit his teeth. "This is ridiculous."

Barty looked him up and down and gave a very unsettling smile. "Maybe."

Harry frowned. He was agreeing with him, but Harry still felt insulted. Barty just kept staring at him, so Harry jerked his head around to stare out the blank window. It was silent for a long while, until Barty spoke up again.

"How did you hide it?"

"What?"

"Your power. How did you hide it? Did your family help you?"

"I didn't hide it," Harry snarled. "I didn't know it was there. Neither did they, for that matter."

Barty tipped his head. "That's impossible."

"And yet here we are," Harry bit back bitterly.

"Weren't you tested?"

"Of course I was tested!"

"When?"

"When I was eight."

"That's very late," Barty narrowed his eyes, almost suspicious if not for the grin on his lips. "Why didn't your parents get you tested earlier?"

Harry remembered a dim day with three cloaked figures in a grayed out room, Petunia's haughty raised brow. Insults about his parents gallavanting off to war and leaving her stranded with yet another kid. Sitting by the windows wih Neville and watching the road, waiting for their parents to come back. Back from the dead.

Harry looked away and shrugged. "Dunno."

Barty's brow furrowed. "That doesn't make any sense."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Harry huffed and leaned forward to glance between Barty and Dolohov. "I'm not a Sun Summoner. I'm not Grisha. Whatever happened on the Fold, I don't know, but I didn't do it."

"And what happened in the Grisha tent?" Dolohov drawled wih his arms crossed.

Harry fidgeted. "I can't explain that, but I didn't do it. The Darkling, he-he did something, when he touched me."

Dolohov laughed. "He didn't do anything. He's an amplifier."

"A what?" Harry was baffled. Barty and Dolohov exchanged another glance, a pregnant moment of quiet between them. Harry bristled. "Forget it. I don't care."

"An amplifier increases a Grisha's power," Barty quickly answered. He ducked two fingers beneath his kefta and tugged out a thin silver chain around his neck. When Harry looked closer, he could see a cluster of sharp, black claws dangling at the bottom. "I got mine when I left school. Killed a Sherborn bear and joined the Darkling's service." Barty finished with pride.

"Do all Grisha have them?" Harry asked, unable to stifle his curiosity.

Dolohov stiffened. "No. Amplifiers are rare and hard to obtain. Only the Darkling's most favored Grisha have them."

Barty tucked his claws back away and leaned back into his seat. "The Darkling is a living amplifier. That's what you felt."

Brow furrowed in thought, Harry huffed softly. "Like the claws? That's his power?"

"One of them." Barty's grin darkened.

Harry clenched the kefta tighter around himself, abruptly very cold. He remembered the surety that had flooded him at the Darkling's touch, the calmness, the oneness. As much as Harry wished he had never felt the Darkling's strangely strong call, it had felt...good. He had felt powerful, in that moment. Like he could do anything, battle anyone, and win.

Barty continued to grin oddly at him, like he knew what Harry was thinking. It stood his hair on end. Harry crossed his arms and sighed. "You're wrong. I can't do what you want."

"For your sake, I hope you're wrong." Barty replied.

"For all our sakes," Dolohov grumbled.

• ️•

Harry lost track of time. Night and day cycled through the windows of the coach, which Harry spent most of his time staring out. They kept brutal pace, only stopping to change horses. On those stops, Harry was allowed to get out and stretch his legs. He slept fitfully, his dreams filled with hellfire eyes, silver blades, and stricken faces.

He'd fallen asleep at some point during the day, because he found himself jolting awake when the coach went over a particularly jarring bump. He shook his head, heart loud in his ears, and found Dolohov staring at him.

"Who's Charlie?"

"No one," Harry answered instinctively. He must've been talking in his sleep. Fred's shocked blue eyes turned into George's, and then Ron's, and then Neville's, somehow blue instead of brown, yet no less devastating. "A friend."

"The tamer?"

Harry pursed his lips and gave a jerky nod. "He saved my life on the Shadow Fold."

"And you saved his." Harry opened his mouth to disagree, but stopped short at the slight upturn of Dolohov's lips. "It is a great honor, to save a life. You saved many."

"Not enough," Harry murmured as he closed his eyes and saw Charlie's blood staining his hands, hands slipping from Dean's grasp as he stared at Harry with terrified eyes. Save me. If Harry really had this power, why hadn't he been able to?

"What about you? If you believe saving a life is such an honor, why not be a Healer instead of a Heartrender?"

Dolohov smiled wryly. "To kill or to cure? We each have our own gifts. I felt I could ultimately save more lives as a Heartrender."

The retort on the tip of Harry's tongue shriveled and died as soon as he thought it. 'As a killer?' No. He knew that wasn't right. These days, in a world of war, one had to look at the big picture. While saving individual lives might make someone feel better in the moment, working to end the cause of the individual pain would save more lives in the end. Not a killer. A soldier.

Abruptly, Dolohov's smile vanished and he slung an arm into a sleeping Barty's side. "Wake up!"

The coach had stopped. For a moment, Harry was confused. "Are we—" He cut himself off as noticed the sun's position in the sky.

The coach door flew open and nearly gave Harry a heart attack. A soldier poked his head in. "There's a fallen tree in the road. It could be a trap, so be alert and—"

He never finished.

A shot rang out and he fell forward, a bullet in his spine. The air was immediately filled wih sound of panicked cries and the teeth-rattling sound of gunfire as a volley of bullets struck the coach.

"Get down!" The guard beside him yelled as he shielded Harry's body with his own.

Barty kicked the dead soldier out of the coach and slammed the door behind him. "Fjerdans." He grumbled. "Antonin, go with him and take this side. We'll take the other. At all costs, defend the coach." He pinned Harry with a hard stare, no humor in it. "Stay here, and stay down. And for Saints sake, don't die."

Then Harry was left alone in the coach, eyes wide, knees to his chest, and ears ringing with the sound of shouting, metal on metal, and horses whinnying in felt a brief indignance for being told to stay put while others lept into the fray, before being distracted with the horror of a body slamming into the side of the coach. It slumped, and a smear of red stained the window in his place. Harry quickly got his feet under him and crouched low to the corner. The door flew open as a man with wild blond hair and a matching beard shoved his head in, caught sight of Harry, and turned to shout something back to his fellows in his sharp Fjerdan tongue.

Harry slung himself forward and shoved his whole weight into the man's stomach. The man choked and tumbled backwards, shocked. Harry scrambled to his feet, kicked the man's knife away, then dropped a knee into the bastard's crotch for good measure.

A high-pitched yelp screeched out of the Fjerdan as he rolled over and dry-heaved onto the ground. Harry didn't stick around to see if he recovered. He bolted for the cover of the trees, an age old instinct from back the orphanage, up a hill and away from the sound of the fighting. As much as Harry hated it, Barty was right. There were people after him, that wanted him dead.

He made it halfway up he slope before he was tackled to the ground from behind. Air whooshed out of him as he hit the ground hard, two blood-stained hands quickly pinning his wrists to the ground.

"I'll gut you right here, witch," The man snarled, voice heavy with accent.

"'M not a witch!" Harry snarled as his hair was yanked up so the man could place a knife at his throat. The split second where he fumbled to grasp both Harry's wrists in one hand gave Harry the moment he need to sling his arm back and elbow the prick right in the sternum.

'Hello, mystical power that I probably don't actually have! Now would be a great time to show yourself!'

The man let out a shout of pain as Harry bucked him off and lunged towards the slick part of the hill. His ankle was caught by trembling but unyeilding fingers and he was dragged backwards until the Fjerdan had pinned Harry's arms down with his knees and sat the rest of his weight on Harry's chest. The man sneered at him, enraged, and brought the knife back up just in time for the pound of several hoofbeats to reign to a halt behind the decimated coach.

A group of riders rode into the clearing, kefta streaks of red and blue, fire and thunder at their fingertips. The lead rider was dressed in black.

There was suddenly much less fury in those blue eyes, and much more fear.

The Darkling slid from his mount and brought his hands together with a resounding boom. Skeins of blackness erupted from his hands, slithered along the ground to seek out Fjerdan assassins and wrap around their faces in masks of seething shadow. They screamed, handicapped. Some dropped their swords, while others waved them about blindly.

Harry watched with a mix of nausea and awe as the Grisha seized the advantage. They cut down men left and right, Heartrenders clutching air and making men fall to their knees, blood at their lips, while Inferni and Squallers worked together to create tornadoes of flame that swept up the Fjerdans and left nothing but charred corpses behind. There was no mercy.

The man on top of Harry muttered something that sounded like a prayer. He was staring, frozen, at the Darkling, his terror paramount.

Harry seized the opportunity. "Could use a little help over here!"

The Darkling's head turned. He raised his hands—

"Nej!" The Fjerdan bleated as he raised his knife higher. "I do not need to see to put my knife through his heart!"

"Shit," Harry hissed under his breath as silence fell over the glen. The Darkling slowly lowered his hands.

"You must realize that you're surrounded," He said calmly. His voice did not raise, and yet it echoed solidly over the hills and trees. The Fjerdan looked around wildly, frantic, and the Darkling edged a few steps up the slope.

"No closer!" He shrieked, knife hand now trembling.

The Darkling stopped. "Give him to me," He murmured, dark eyes intent on the assassin's face, "Give him to me, and I'll let you scurry back to your King."

'Like the rat you are,' Harry thought venomously.

For a moment, it looked like the Darkling's lips twitched up, the ghost of a smirk. Harry blinked.

The Fjerdan gave a hysterical giggle. "Oh no, I do not think so. The Darkling does not spare lives." He shook his head and looked down at Harry. "He will not have you," He crooned, a maniacal expression on his face. "He will not have this power, too. No more." He raised the knife in both hands and bellowed at the sky, "Skirden Fjerda!"

The knife plunged down and Harry choked on his sudden panic. His eyes shut tightly as he clawed viciously at whatever part of the man he could reach, a final struggle. He briefly glimpsed the Darkling swinging his arm down in a wide arc before he closed his eyes. There was a crack like thunder, and Harry's hands stilled as...nothing.

Harry peeked an eye open and gawked at the horrifying sight before him. The Fjerdan had been cut in half. His shoulder and his right arm lay on the grass next to Harry, while the remaining part of his body swayed and fell forward.

The scream that wanted to escape Harry's throat caught in his chest and left room for nothing more than a shocked wheeze as he scrambled out from beneath the half of a body still on top of him. His breath came in shallow pants as hysteria built within him.

Somebody knelt in front him and obscured his view of the mutilated corpse with dark eyes and wavy hair. Gloved hands grasped at the sides of his face. "Look at me."

"What," Harry croaked out with another strained wheeze. "What did you do to him?"

"What I had to. Can you stand?"

Harry nodded absently. He completely ignored the Darkling's offered hand as he heaved himself o his feet, his gaze drawn back to ebbing puddle of blood beneath—

Fingertips pulled his head away. "At me."

Green eyes blinked into the half-lidded eyes before him, before Harry shook himself and jerked his chin out of the Darkling's grip with a growl. It didn't seem to phase him. He let his hand drop.

The Darkling led Harry down the hill and called out to his men, "Clear the road. I need twenty riders."

"The boy?" Barty asked.

"Rides with me," The Darkling replied easily.

Harry bristled. He was left by the Darkling's horse as he went to confer with his captains. Harry saw Dolohov among them, sweaty and clutching a bloodied arm, and felt a startling ping of relief. While their meeting hadn't been exactly pleasant, the conversation they'd had earlier that day still stuck in Harry's mind.

A few minutes passed, and then Grisha were mounting their horses to continue onward. Several men had finished clearing the tree from the road, and others were riding out with the now battered coach.

"A decoy," The Darkling explained as he came up beside Harry. Harry jolted in surprise. Those dark eyes glittered in amusement. "We'll take to the southern trails. It's what we should have done in the first place."

"So you do make mistakes," Harry mused without thinking. The Darkling had paused in the act of pulling on his gloves, but before Harry could apologize—not that he actually wanted to—his lips curled into a half-smile.

"Of course I make mistakes. Just not often."

He raised his hood and offered Harry a hand to help him onto the horse. Harry scowled at it and crossed his arms, the adrenaline in his veins urging him to stand tall, fearless. "I'm not a princess. I know how to mount a damn horse."

The Darkling blinked at him, surprised, and there was a tense moment where they merely stared at each other, unblinking. Perhaps Harry should've felt more afraid, as he had just seen this man cut a person in fucking half with nothing but air—but Harry couldn't bring himself to feel contrite about his tone. He wasn't really used to people trying to kill him, so he figured a shock like that entitled him to a few 'insolent brat' moments. He might still be in shock, actually. He couldn't tell.

After another minute of silence, the Darkling swept his arm to the side to give him the go ahead. Harry felt a knot in him he hadn't even noticed loosen at the gesture. He inclined his head jerkily and turned to swing himself easily onto the dappled gray mare before him. She whickered softly at him, almost as if in disapproval.

Harry grasped the reins to steady himself, then stiffened as the Darkling hefted onto the mare's flank, just behind him. He pressed so close that Harry could feel his body heat through the many layers clothes between them. The healed bite on his shoulder tingled.

Gloved hands slid around to grasp loosely at Harry's wrists. "Do you suppose," The Darkling murmured softly. "That you'll be driving?"

Harry released the reins quickly and pushed his hands awkwardly into the mare's mane. He felt a little foolish, what with the Darkling's arms caging him into place, leaned forward like a racer, but it was better than being placed behind the Darkling and being told to hang on for dear life.

"I noticed that you did not complain about being made to ride with me."

"Why would I?" Harry shot back sharply as the mare kicked up into a trot. "It's obvious you don't want me dead. Since a lot of people apparently dowant me dead now, I figured that you're my best bet if I want to live. Believe it or not, I'm not really used to people trying to off me."

"Really?" The Darkling drawled. "I hardly notice anymore."

Harry let out a startled laugh, turning back to look at the Darkling just in time to catch the ghost of a smile on the man's lips. Though there was humor in it, Harry got the sense that he wasn't joking.

There no more words spoken between them for a while, just the sound of beating hooves and the rush of wind in his ears.

Adrenaline trickled from his system slowly, until he found himself slumping forward more and more, face ashen as it truly sunk in what had just happened. He could still see the frightened face of the Fjerdan assassin, the glint of the dagger as it stabbed toward his heart, the sight of blood seeping into the grass from a severed torso…

Harry heard a slight shuffle of fabric behind him, then jolted at the feel of bare fingers pressing into the back of his neck. He opened his mouth to protest the touch, but never got that far. Warmth blossomed out from beneath the Darkling's fingertips, a feeling of surety and calm along with it. The deep, unsettlingly pleasant feeling of oneness that washed through him set him on edge, but it wasn't enough to keep him awake. Exhaustion wrangled with content, and together, they pulled him into slumber.


End file.
